The World’s Racist Search Engine: My experience at Google as a vocal, Asian TVC

CW: Gaslighting, Racism, White Feminism, Discrimination at Workplace, COVID-19, Suicide, Violence towards AAPI community

TL;DR: Google [Department Redacted] let me go after I called out management on their racist practices. Now, the company at large is using concepts that I had pitched and they rejected a year ago for a current #StopAsianHate campaign. The recent shooting in Atlanta targeting Asian Women has triggered me to my core and I have reached my breaking point.

My name is [Redacted]. I am an out and proud queer, trans, Filipinx-American with PTSD. I was a contract/temp worker (a TVC) at Google [Department Redacted], a department that drives a lot of the Creative Marketing from Google. It has become incredibly hard for me to heal from my traumatic experience there, especially with the recent events towards the AAPI community and seeing/hearing about Google’s sudden enthusiasm towards “showing up” for the community during this time. It has triggered me to my core and I have reached my breaking point. Google [Department Redacted] terminated my contract on August 28, 2020 due to “Lack of work — COVID-19 budget cuts” when I became very vocal about the inequities within the department and Google at large. While I don’t think my story will make as much waves or impact as Timnit Gebru’s, I am sharing my truth so that no one in the near future of joining the department and Google at large will be treated like this ever again.

I am publicizing this because there is a level of shame and embarrassment white people feel comfortable enduring without feeling remorse or practicing any accountability when these matters are handled privately. Holding an entire corporation accountable cannot happen if the accountability doesn’t come from and start with the white people who form and contribute to its policies.

March 2020, I was harassed on public transportation during my commute to work by a white man who went straight up to my face and said “Have fun dying of COVID. No one gives a fuck about you.”

Since I was paid by the hour, I could not afford to take the hour train ride back home, “take a mental health day,” and cry about it. Instead, I decided to use that as creative fuel and pitched ideas on a shared deck that was meant for brainstorming on how Google as a brand can show up for our users during COVID. I crafted slides on the deck how Google can raise awareness and educate people on the immense xenophobia towards the AAPI community that had just begun heightening, which included data-backed evidence through what Google calls “Search Trends.” I was living in a 10-month daydream working at Google [Department Redacted]. The nightmare started here.

“Let’s put more positive ideas upfront around how people can stay optimistic during COVID. We’d never use something like this.”

April arrived and so did the mandatory Work from Home order, which was when I presented my ideas. I was pinged by my manager at the time, [Who will be referred to as Name of Manager #2 Redacted henceforth], to “move them to the bottom of the deck,” which is commonly known as the Appendix or The Graveyard. She followed with, “Let’s put more positive ideas upfront around how people can stay optimistic during COVID. We’d never use something like this.” Of course, the creative work that resulted after that were dumb posts on banana bread, renovating your backyard — things that only the upper-middle-white class could relate to and have the privilege to enjoy during a pandemic. I was livid. In other ideas I pitched around “thematic calendar moments” such as PRIDE and how the world is searching about all the different identities around gender and sexuality, my manager called my ideas “too niche.”

As much as I look back missing the times when [Name of Manager #2 Redacted] and I would have to brainstorm about podcast episodes and work on campaigns like The Olympics, it became evident that while the friendliest of white people may know how to talk about the injustices of the nation, that doesn’t mean they are actually ready to address the ways they perpetuate them in their own liberal spaces. I obviously wish working in tech could have always stayed that joyful and easy, but I guess believing it could be was also my privilege to confront and where my ignorance was bliss. Friendly doesn’t always mean liberal and liberal doesn’t always mean ally.

“Can you just give them what they need? They’re full-time.”

In May, I also shared Search Trends around the rise of domestic abuse during COVID. A white [Position Redacted] asked if a specific city was searching for them. My manager interjected before I could even say it was nationwide that she “tried looking up if it was coming from Baltimore but couldn’t find much.” In “The spirit of Google,” I pulled the ever popular “Curious” card and asked a followup question of “Why would we need to be looking if these searches are coming from Baltimore?” My manager replied, “Or other highly-populated Black cities.” I reported that incident to someone above her level (also white) that I thought I could trust to do something about it. They replied, “Ya, you’re right. That was not an okay thing to say” and left it at that. This was before the murder of George Floyd. The header on Google’s COVID-19 information page at the time read big and bold “COVID-19 is a virus that originated from Wuhan, China.” I expressed to the person responsible for the header that we should change it to something more informative and helpful, to which they replied, “But it’s a fact?” It is also a fact that contributing to that rhetoric is what brought us to where the state of the AAPI community is today.

May 26th, the VP of Marketing sent an email about “What happened yesterday” to both full-time and TVC employees to “take care of yourselves…take things slow and easy during this time” and that he was “welcoming all ideas and feedback on how we can build a more equitable society.” We were now trying to come up with campaigns for both COVID and the uprising of BLM protests. Three white Creatives were requesting some microaggressing ideas such as “Can we compare if searches in Chinese are being searched the same way in Spanish?” to make campaigns “feel more global.” There was also this appetite for Search data around “All-Time-Lows” because of this very poor understanding and misguided interpretation with Google Search data where Senior Creatives assumed that if search interest in a topic has declined, then to them, that meant the topic people are searching for is either a problem solved or no longer exists. For example, if search interest around “racism” have decreased/reached an “all-time-low,” the white Senior Creatives would get excited and thought that implied racism in general has also decreased. Or if “allyship” had more search interest than “racism,” they thought this could be used as an example of hope in creative campaigns. I replied suggesting that there are other useful data points we could be focusing on and explained to them that correlation does not equal causation with an example of “Just because searches for LGBTQ+ have decreased, that doesn’t mean LGBTQ+ people no longer exist.” My manager asked me to hop on a call and said, “Can you just give them what they need? They’re full-time. They’re a Senior [Position Redacted].” I was taken aback. If this Senior [Position Redacted] were a TVC, would I have been able to reject their request? Or is it because I’m a TVC, I’m not allowed to question the motives behind a full-time employees request?

I’ve navigated overwhelmingly white spaces long enough to know that “Let me know if you have any questions” is the white liberal’s passive aggressive way of saying, “Do I make myself clear?”

I decided to ping my manager later that week to remind her about the email from the VP of Marketing to “take care of yourselves” and “take things slow and easy during this time,” but that was the complete opposite energy or type of support I was receiving from my manager and I said that. Instead of apologizing or even acknowledging what I just said, she responded, “I know you’re taking things slow. You only need to tell me if you’re taking time off. Let me know if you have any questions.” I’ve navigated overwhelmingly white spaces long enough to know that “Let me know if you have any questions” is the white liberal’s passive aggressive way of saying, “Do I make myself clear?”

I saw a post by educator and activist Rachel Cargle on correcting white language and their racist undertones. She had a format where she would take a white person’s response to her and annotate any racist remarks. I thought this was a brilliant idea and decided to do this on the ping exchange between me and my manager. I sent it to her manager, [Name of Manager #1 Redacted], with my manager CCd.

[Name of Manager #1 Redacted] is truly one of the smartest and most charismatic people I have ever met and have gotten to work with. Between [Name of Manager #1 Redacted] and [Name of Manager #2 Redacted], I looked to [Name of Manager #1 Redacted] as my mentor and someone who really took me under her wing. Out of all the white managers I’ve been forced to worked with throughout my career, [Name of Manager #1 Redacted] became one of the most important ones to me. It is heartbreaking and terrifying for me to relive how this feeling of betrayal — “the white woman jumping out” — unfolded.

I took another step further and called out management and Google as a brand on their toxic positivity and lack of intentionality when thinking of how many different types of people from all over the world use Google and the questions they are actually asking Google during the pandemic. I also added how idiotic and a waste of time it was for our All-Staff Q&A about George Floyd and the uprising of BLM protests to be filled with white women crying over “What resources can we use to teach our children about racism?” because 1) If they’re already fully educated enough on racism themselves that their concern has become how to teach it to the kids instead of furthering their own (un)learning, then why do they still need to be spoon fed more resources and 2) What kind of question is that when you literally work full-time at the World’s Largest Search Engine that has existed since 1996.

“I’m getting feedback that you’ve become difficult to work with lately, and it’s not just coming from white men.”

I did this call-out through a BCC email, which is not very “Googley”, but the “Reply all” email-etiquette of white people adding nothing to the conversation but feeling like they did by replying “+1” was something I didn’t have the patience for. I did not include [Name of Manager #2 Redacted] on the BCC list considering how much tension regarding her white fragility had already erupted. I also did not include [Name of Manager #1 Redacted] because I had already sent her my feedback regarding [Name of Manager #2 Redacted].

[Name of Manager #1 Redacted] scheduled a 1:1 with me the following morning. I was reprimanded by [Name of Manager #1 Redacted] for “editing [Name of Manager #2 Redacted]’s words” and “for not talking about it to her privately so that she could talk to [Name of Manager #2 Redacted] about it instead.” I didn’t agree with that. My psychological safety was no longer in a place where I would trust what would have happened if my white manager and her white manager had a private off-line discussion about the hurt she has caused me.

[Name of Manager #1 Redacted] proceeded to tell me that she thought it “would be best” if I “took a mental health leave” for a week because “I’m getting feedback that you’ve become difficult to work with lately, and it’s not just coming from white men.” I was a bit confused by that statement because I actually didn’t have any specific anger towards any specific white men at Google [Department Redacted] other than the fact that there’s too many of them (and they’re honestly not that bright). My specific resentment and racist incidents at [Department Redacted] have all come from very smart white women who wholeheartedly believe their actions cannot be racist because they love Lizzo and voted for Biden-Harris. I realized in that moment that white liberal women have many blindsides and it stems from the belief that they are “exempt” from being racist simply because they also experience oppression from white men. I didn’t know what else to do or say except break down into tears. I’m going to be honest and admit that I yelled at her that I was angry and I specifically stated that I hated the work we were doing around COVID and BLM. Was I strategic or professional or “Googley” enough to white standards with how I handled everything leading up to this point? No. But I was honest, which Google as a brand and the white people who work in it still to this day are not willing to be.

“The diversity pendulum is now swinging so far to the left that I feel like I’m getting overlooked in my chances of promotion or other positions”

The white woman’s power and excessive privilege is very present, especially at Google and especially at ERG meetings within Google such as “Womxn@[DepartmentRedacted]” or “Womxn@Google,” (or what the BIPOC TVCs mockingly call “WhiteWomxn@). During a meeting in January, a white woman had the shameless audacity to voice her “concern” of “The diversity pendulum is now swinging so far to the left that I feel like I’m getting overlooked in my chances of promotion or other positions” and no one stopped to tell her what she said was racist because she was probably just saying what they’re all really thinking. I had to grab the microphone during that panel and point it out as she conveniently got up and left the room to “get a sip of water to clear her throat” because she clearly used all her might to say that statement with her whole chest. TBH, the diversity pendulum needs to swing so much further and harder to the left that it comes back to hit that imbecile’s head right off and swings back to the left again.

The woman wrote a private email to me (with an exclamation point and smiley face at the end?????) apologizing about what she had said with the usual white woman add-on of “That wasn’t my intention.” She didn’t find it necessary or appropriate to send this message to the ERG group email at large because no one else seemed offended by the incident since it didn’t apply to them. It would interrupt their thread of played out gifs of Beyonce’s “Who Run the World? Girls” or Lizzo for her body positivity as if these Peloton enthusiasts can truly empathize with what it’s like to be both a fetishized black body and scrutinized for it at the same time. There are also cisgendered “loving reminders” of “This Pussy Grabs Back!” or a popular white feminist one: “She is here because she is qualified” scattered as posters throughout the office. When it comes to the way full-time hiring goes at Google, what does that corny quote mean to the BIPOC TVC employees? Are we not qualified or worthy of reaping the benefits of being full-time? This “trickle-down-economics” approach on “HIRE MORE WOMEN” is pathetic if all you’re doing is hiring more white women.

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry. But I feel like this came out of nowhere.”

I didn’t feel comfortable about accepting the mental health leave but [Name of Manager #1 Redacted] reassured that it would be fully paid and that when I got back, I would have a new manager and that my previous manager would be put in management training. I thought I could just come back disengaged from the work politics or virtual social gatherings and take advantage of how WFH can allow me to really keep to myself and avoid the white people as much as I could for my sanity. [Name of Manager #2 Redacted] did schedule a 1:1 with me to apologize, but I knew it was only because [Name of Manager #1 Redacted] told her to because she started the conversation with “I just wanted to say I’m sorry. But I feel like this came out of nowhere.” I was then forced to educate her on how it actually did not come out of nowhere; the feeling that this “came out of nowhere” is a privileged feeling I will never know. I did not say “It’s ok,” because it wasn’t okay. I did not accept her apology and I made that obvious because I’m done with white people just saying sorry not because they mean it or even feel bad about it, but just so BIPOC could stop “making them feel like a bad person/the bad guy.” I stared at her blankly and said “Ok.” I really didn’t feel safe saying anything else because it was just me and her on the call. I wish I had asked for a HR on the call but TVCs don’t even have one, only full-time employees do. Because of that, it would be her word against mine and because she is the full-time white woman, if we were going to go down in this fight that I started, she would win.

That was July. My contract with Google was terminated a month later due to “Lack of work, COVID-19 budget cuts.” I was the main source of income for my family of four. My single, immigrant mother who is a small-business owner was also forced into unemployment. My younger sister’s startup also let her go. My younger brother would now have to step up as the provider making $32/hr as a TVC at another Big Tech company. These are details my managers knew (if they paid attention to the times I shared with them about my family). As I continued to go to work during the last weeks of my contract, there would be banter at the All-Staff meetings about how white people were “running out of alcohol,” “going on a weekend getaway,” or how they “need to build a shed in their backyard to hide from their children.”

They hired 6 more white people onto the team and promoted my manager barely even a month after I had left.

In September, I learned that Google [Department Redacted] hired 6 more white people onto the team and promoted my manager barely even a month after I had left. Perhaps she learned a lot in management training. I love that my manager says something racist, gets fully-paid management training and then promoted. I call out my manager for saying something racist, am taken off and no longer assigned on projects for being “difficult to work with” and then laid off due to “Lack of work — COVID-19 budget cuts.”

Some stats on Full-Time Google Marketing Employees in order of chain of command from CEO to Google [Department Redacted]:

Marketing Management Group (VPs): 13/14 white
VPs who lead Creative Teams: 6/6 white
Google [Department Redacted] Leads: 7/9 white
Google [Department Redacted] “Maker Team” Leads: 13/14 white
Google [Department Redacted] Production and Creative Strategy Heads: 4/4 white
Google [Department Redacted] Production and Creative Strategy Team: 13/17 white
Google [Department Redacted] Engineering: 4/5 white
Google [Department Redacted] Creative Team: 18/30 white (Of the 18 white Creatives, 15 are Lead or Senior)

Upon my exit from Google [Department Redacted], [Name of Manager #2 Redacted] told me to “Remove my stickers” that I had placed on the slides on the COVID brainstorming deck to label as my ideas — which was designed for/gifted to me as a cheeky gesture by a Senior [Position Redacted]. I’ve experienced and witnessed numerous times in my 1.5 year contract at Google [Department Redacted] white people shamelessly copying and pasting my and other “junior” employees’ slides onto their own without giving any credit. I let it go several times pre-COVID, but this became personal during COVID and the uprising of BLM protests when white people couldn’t think of ideas of their own because they obviously could not relate to any of it. When I had confronted [Name of Manager #2 Redacted] a previous time about that, she used the age-old excuse of “Everything is just moving so fast, people do that just to save time,” and kept repeating it like a broken record because she could not answer my followup question of why I couldn’t be included in pitch meetings that had my slides or at least be mentioned in the pitch meetings for these ideas being originally mine from an already existing deck (specifically about a PRIDE campaign). I was scared to ask why she wanted me to do this sticker-removing as part of my off-boarding and I was even more scared of what would happen if I simply decided to not do it since “Everything is just moving so fast…” and I was leaving in a week anyway. I had a sick feeling in my stomach of what was to come. I just wasn’t expecting it would hit me this hard this soon and that it would be this personal.

I felt like a complete failure to my family, to my community, and felt completely sick in every aspect of the word. A wildfire because of a gender-reveal party happened and a fire within my Brown, Queer, and Trans body that once burned so bright felt extinguished. I was hospitalized for attempting suicide. My aunt caught and died from COVID. I wouldn’t even wish to make this up.

My manager knew this idea existed a year ago and didn’t think it mattered when I was harassed on public transportation but Google is now suddenly gung-ho about it after 6 Asian women who didn’t have the privilege to Work From Home have been slaughtered for reasons that will never be justifiable…The common thread here is that it takes a pandemic and a certain amount of LGBTQ+ and/or BIPOC people to be murdered for Google to think these are issues, stories, and human beings worth getting behind.

On February 26, The CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, tweeted work very similar to the one that I had pitched on Asian xenophobia. The only thing that is different about it is the now “trending” hashtag #StopAsianHate being included. Even if this is “just a coincidence,” my manager knew this idea existed a year ago and didn’t think it mattered when I was harassed on public transportation but the entire company is now suddenly gung-ho about it after 6 Asian women who didn’t have the privilege to Work From Home have been slaughtered for reasons that will never be justifiable. Google could have been ahead of the curve in an innovative and “forward-thinking” way revealing “a story that only Google could tell” (as the brand prides itself in), had they taken my input into account back in March. Now, it’s just as pathetic as when everyone posted a black box or a picture that their copy of “White Fragility” arrived from Amazon Prime.

I shouldn’t “feel flattered” or “be proud” that Google produced something so personal and important to me that I had advocated for a year ago. BIPOC creatives have always been ahead of our time and white people constantly steal our ideas just to catch up. This is the second project released from Google after I was terminated that I had prototyped, scripted, and even lead when I was still contracted there — The Black Trans Lives Matter film. Google [Department Redacted] replaced my name with [Name of Manager #2]’s in the credits and comms. I don’t have the mental capacity to go into full details about the amount of scrutiny that project faced during the time I pitched it and the lengths it took to have that film finally launch a week after I left. It would be insulting to the Black Trans Womxn I wanted to honor in the film. It would also open a much bigger can of worms covered in white tears and fecal matter about the “legal loopholes” around “Google’s access to data” and the use of white people’s full-time status as justification to why they deserve to not just take credit, but also be the representative of the campaign while consulting with their TVC BIPOC employees behind the scenes on “clarification about the work process” so that they can better fake their “wokeness” — a word that became so disgustingly overused by an overwhelmingly white space of employees to describe particular projects around “diversity and inclusion.” This effort around the Asian community is also the third project that Google [Department Redacted] decided to launch months after I originally pitched it — The Compton Cowboys film. The common thread here is that it takes a pandemic and a certain amount of LGBTQ+ and/or BIPOC people to be murdered for Google to think these are issues, stories, and human beings worth getting behind.

As a Queer and Trans Creative of Color, I know this tale is nothing new. But as we begin transitioning into what people are framing as a “post-COVID” or even “post-George Floyd” world that is “listening” and promising to “do better,” I really do think conversations around artistic integrity, authenticity, and intellectual property, especially when dealing with topics such as diversity, need to be had. This cannot be brushed off as “That’s marketing, kid” because essentially when you take a look at the demographic of who makes up these corporations, the departments within them, and who establishes the status quo around them, that’s racist, ma’am.

White people will only show up for and listen to other white people, even when it comes to discussing racism.

When Ahmaud Arbery was murdered, Google [Department Redacted] asked me to host a talk with a notable Black Trans Woman (who doesn’t deserve to be dragged into this regardless of her name and status) and she shared with the attendees her wisdom on Anti-Racism. Only half of the department showed up, the half being made up of mostly BIPOC TVCs. However, just days after George Floyd’s murder, the department thought it would be cute to bring Robin DiAngelo in to talk about her book White Fragility to “Kick off a Speaker Series on Racism.” It was a full-house. I still to this day don’t really know what came out of that except that clearly white people will only show up for and listen to other white people, even when it comes to discussing racism.

If budget cuts were really the issue, how did they have the budget for a steak and scallops dinner delivered to the entire Google Year In Search 2020 team to do a virtual cooking class? Is that where my budget had to be allocated? And could they not have allocated the existing budget for the 6 white men brought on after my contract ended to hire people of color?

Before COVID and before the murder of George Floyd, I was happy working at Google. I drank the kool-aid thinking I was being extremely well-paid with my non-negotiable contract offered at $55/hr and felt valued and appreciated when I was given a raise to $65/hr within less than 3 months of me working there. I was fine knowing that even after finding out that the participants in the Fellowship program were being paid $70/hr because I got to not just touch, but lead some of Google’s largest campaigns. I believed it would literally pay off in the end. If the decision of my contract ending was “a larger conversation” beyond my manager and her manager who say they “truly supported” me and “wanted me to succeed” when former colleagues of mine ask what happened to me, I feel like they would have at least mentioned that they advocated for me, found a way to let me finish my 2 year contract, or even just cut my contract in December rather than right away in August, but they didn’t. If budget cuts were really the issue, how did they have the budget for a steak and scallops dinner delivered to the entire Google Year In Search 2020 team to do a virtual cooking class? Is that where my budget had to be allocated? And could they not have allocated the existing budget for the 6 white men brought on after my contract ended to hire people of color? I could have happily referred at least 20 BIPOC womxn to fill those spots instead. If Google [Department Redacted] wants to bring up that I was one of the 8 or so TVCs who were let go in August, can they answer the aforementioned questions for those 8 or so others if not for me?

“Bring your whole self to work…until you make me uncomfortable.”

It is unfair for white people to expect their BIPOC employees to have the tools to “properly” “bring their whole self to work” while processing two global pandemics. How dare white people minimize our trauma and flip it on us as “unprofessional.” How dare white people give me feedback that I’m “becoming difficult to work with” during a traumatic time when white people are constantly difficult to work with no matter what time of the year it is. How dare they value the ideas and experiences of the marginalized enough to recycle them as their own, but not the human beings who contributed and even lived them.

White liberals don’t want us to bring our whole selves to work. They want us to bring our bodies, our “fly style,” our ideas, our taste in music (to the point where the VP of Marketing even had me “DJ” at the beginning of every All-Staff), but not our ability to speak up and hold them accountable. “Bring your whole self to work…until you make me uncomfortable.” I was being paid $65/hr to perform my 9–5 tasks as a [Name of Position Redacted] in addition to the labor of making sure I wasn’t hurting white management’s feelings no matter how much they hurt mine with their ignorant comments and actions every day. Not only was I being unfairly compensated for the former, they also did not budget for the amount of work I put in towards the latter.

Creative work is personal. Identity is personal. Creative work around people’s identities and livelihood are personal. I am taking this personally.

This is not about “shifting my perspective” into “using this as a lesson” on how I can be “a better manager in the future.” I know I will be a far more empathetic and compassionate manager than any of my white managers throughout my career ever pretended to be or wish they could be. This is about making sure my white managers understand how to be better managers and advocates for those who report to them as they continue to move up the corporate ladder that the system has set them up to easily do so regardless of how progressive they are or how much empathy and compassion they do/do not have.

I am really done with overpaid full-time white liberals at Google feeling so damn proud about doing the bare minimum and bringing people of color on as TVCs to be tokenized as underpaid consultants for “diversity and inclusion.” I am SO done with being told these problems “are bigger than Google” when these problems can start being addressed at a powerful corporation like Google and the “well-intentioned” white liberals who hold positions of power within it. Malcolm X had a term for them — the smiling fox. Neither [Name of Manager #1 Redacted] or [Name of Manager #2 Redacted] sent me a diplomatic “Thank you for all you’ve done during your time here” email on my last day, but the Executive [Position Redacted] of our department did and even offered to connect me with people in his network. So who exactly made the decision here and who had a say? People can’t just keep saying “It’s Google.” Google isn’t a person, it’s represented by people. People make these decisions. White people make these decisions, especially at Google [Department Redacted].

I do not care about passive aggressive threatening language of “burning bridges with people who can impact the future of my career.” I do not care about letting this be “water under the bridge” when the water is filled with so much toxicity and white tears. I do not care about white people crying when I confide in them about these things (believe me, I’ve tried) and doing absolutely nothing other than saying “That is terrible that happened to you. Thank you for sharing. I hear you.” White people do not get to cry. White people do not actually hear me. White people have built these “professional bridges” on the backs of marginalized people and skip right across it. They have the privilege to “feel terrible” for us to “feel like this came out of nowhere” but do nothing about it other than that. That is how systemic racism continues and stretches further. It’s too easy for white liberals to blame Donald Trump, the alt-right, and even Google in order to overcompensate for their lack and unwillingness of inward reflection.

I am tired of “killing them with kindness” and “not letting them have power over me” when white people continue to participate in and allow the literal killings and suffering of marginalized people while the marginalized are still “fighting back” in nonviolent ways through our words, through community organizing, grass-root efforts, and through voting. White people get to “have a bad day,” but BIPOC can be murdered for simply trying to have a good day. The amount of forgiveness BIPOC individuals and communities have historically given to white people in power because of the hope that we hold on to yet the lack of empathy given towards us dare we talk back to our white manager for her racist remark is baffling. White people have had power over me, my sister, and my brother even before my mother and her mother were born — no eat-pray-love-yoga mantra can fix that. It is not enough for white people to be an ally or even anti-racist anymore. It is time to be anti-white supremacist.

White people take our land, our lives, our ideas and still expect to receive more and still believe they deserve more. No more. Not anymore…I do not care what bridge I burn. I and too many other mistreated BIPOC employees at their workplaces are going to burn the whole system down and I am starting with Google [Department Redacted].

I am capable of building my own career bridge on the right side of history. I’ve been constantly warned by other BIPOC creatives that “Just because you’re right and what happened to you is true, doesn’t mean you’ll win.” Others beg me to just “keep playing the game” that white people have created and I’ve witnessed firsthand how that mentality strips our full potential away just so we can get a paycheck or even literally live to see another day. Several BIPOC creatives have said things to me like “I don’t think I have the presence or impact at Google [Department Redacted] to speak up and I’m scared of what will happen if I do” or “I’d rather not.” The fear white people have instilled in us and the intergenerational trauma are so deeply embedded in our DNA that in 2021, we are not actually free. White people take our land, our lives, our ideas and still expect to receive more and still believe they deserve more. No more. Not anymore. If I have to suffer this entire lifetime so my children and their children won’t have to fear being murdered by bigots and eaten by the smiling foxes of the world then this fight will be worth it. I do not care what bridge I burn. I and too many other mistreated BIPOC employees at their workplaces are going to burn the whole system down and I’m going to start with Google [Department Redacted]. I am tired of people of color going about their whole lives just simply trying to survive in a white world. We deserve to not just live, but to thrive. I am fully aware I have a “whole life ahead of me.” I am sharing my story because I and so many others do not deserve to live the rest of it according to whiteness anymore.

These are the solutions I am demanding for my healing and the better treatment of current and future BIPOC TVC employees at Google:

• [Name of Manager #1 Redacted], [Name of Manager #2 Redacted], and all white Creative Leads/Senior Creatives to step down and de-platform from leading diversity work and campaigns. If they so desire to participate and contribute, the project must be managed and directed by a full-time BIPOC Creative that has the energy, mental capacity, and competitive pay to do so. If this means for Google [Department Redacted] to step back entirely from creating diversity projects until more full-time BIPOC Creative Leads are hired, at least no one is pretending anymore and the brand can be called out for what it really is.
• Google [Department Redacted] to focus their full-time and TVC hiring search beyond white men from Wieden+Kennedy.
• Give all data-focused work back to Google News Lab. It should not just be [Name of Manager #2 Redacted]’s explanation on data and [Name of Manager #1 Redacted] simply agreeing with everything [Name of Manager #2 Redacted] says about the data since [Name of Manager #1 Redacted] is unfamiliar with the tools despite being the [Position Redacted] for all data-backed campaigns.
• [Name of Manager #2 Redacted] should not be managing people. Period.
• Diversity and Inclusion audits/consulting to be part of the clip/imagery selection process throughout production and not treated as a last minute/last step protocol because FYI, slapping Black and Brown people on these videos doesn’t make the campaigns “less white” or even “more diverse.”
• Mandatory attendance for professional training at Women@ on Intersectionality and making a womxn of color Chair or Co-Chair who has the energy, capacity, and competitive pay in their existing/assigned role to do so. The equating of the white womxn “struggle” to the BIPOC experience needs to end. They are not synonymous. The same way I fully recognize being Asian and/or Brown is not synonymous to being Black.
• Mandatory attendance for professional training for Google Marketing from BIPOC lead organizations and BIPOC creatives of how diversity efforts in advertising shouldn’t be left to non profit work or activism.
• White people mentioning that they “spearheaded” or “championed” diversity and inclusion work on their PERF should not be an incentive or something praised/rewarded.
• Reimbursement for the amount of therapy and wellbeing resources I’ve had to pay out of pocket for during my time of unemployment and back-pay of $5 or more for every hour that I worked at Google [Department Redacted] for the completely unjustified and unfair pay disparity between my role as [Position Redacted] at $65/hr and The Fellowship participants’ at $70/hr. This does not mean that The Fellowship participants did not deserve that pay rate or should have a decreased pay rate. This means that Google [Department Redacted] had the budget to be paying me at least equal to if not more. If Google at large was able to do this when they were found guilty for unfair pay towards their Asian and female Engineers, this shouldn’t be a problem for Google [Department Redacted] to do this for one former employee. If you dare bring up the red-tape due to me being a TVC and therefore “technically not counting as a former employee,” that’s your systemic issue to fix, not mine.
• Protocols to be put in place on Intellectual Property shared and recycled among creative colleagues regardless if they are full-time or TVC within [Department Redacted].
• Acknowledgement from Google [Department Redacted] leadership that their decision making towards creative campaigns is reliant upon majority white shareholders aka racism.
• A complete revision on what exactly it means to be “Googley” and understanding that the vague term’s sub-mantras of “Assume best intent” and “Bring your whole self to work” are in favor of whiteness/toxic positivity and therefore should no longer be applied in corporate culture.
• An onsite HR for TVC employees.
• An investigation into the disparities between full-time white employees and BIPOC TVCs in order to address the immediate need for the dismantling of the TVC caste system and hiring model at Google [Department Redacted] and eventually the TVC caste system within Google at large.

Even if [Name of Manager #1 Redacted] or [Name of Manager #2 Redacted] reached out to me, it’s unfair for me and BIPOC to have to constantly consider white people’s perspectives while we’re still processing our pain and being forced to gaslight ourselves because of that. Even if [Name of Manager #1 Redacted] and I sat down with the purest intentions to talk about what happened between us interpersonally, the inequities at Google will not be fixed by the repairing of our relationship no matter how much it mattered to either of us (if it did at all). I really believed she would do better. But at the end of the day, white people really don’t know any better.

Know fucking better, white liberals. It is toxic to grant yourself the title of an “ally.” It is hypocritical to grant yourself “grace” when you give BIPOC so little of it. “Allyship” at an individual and brand level is meaningless when it is only done at your convenience. If you’re so hurt and offended for the way I’m “generalizing white people,” please take a hundred steps back and think about the last time a white person was murdered or fired from their job because their whiteness was “generalized.” Please understand the temporary hurt you have in this moment is the only type of pain you’ll feel for the permanent trauma and irreparable damage your whiteness has inflicted onto so many innocent lives. I am publicizing this because there is a level of shame and embarrassment white people feel comfortable enduring without feeling remorse or practicing any accountability when these matters are handled privately. Holding an entire corporation accountable cannot happen if the accountability doesn’t come from and start with the white people who form and contribute to its policies.

As far as where I’m at now, well, I’m still healing and grieving. And I’m at a new (equally controversial) company as a full-time and Senior level employee where I even have daily check-ins with the CMO about my ideas on shaping the department and company culture, as well as my career growth.

I shared this story to my new manager, who is a Brown woman, during my last interview and I told myself that if this would scare her from hiring me, then I’d rather not work here. With tears in her eyes, she told me, “I promise you as long as we work together, that will never happen to you here. We have to lift each other up.” When I was offered the job the next day, I told the recruiter that my salary “would have to be worth how taxing it is to work with white people.” She agreed with zero hesitation and said “I will advocate for you.”

I ended up getting 20% more than what I asked for. This is something I would have never been able to achieve without being an advocate for myself.

To the very, very few white people at Google who kept in touch with me when I left and asked how they can help me heal, thank you for following through in more ways than I expected, especially in helping me write this story. Thank you for letting me cry to you on the phone, for reading my long texts, for the thoughtfulness in your responses even when I was not the most receptive. Thank you for giving a fuck about me and my experience. I know that my path to forgiving [Name of Manager #1 Redacted] and [Name of Manager #2 Redacted] can finally start now, regardless of what happens from here.

To the past and current BIPOC employees of Google [Department Redacted] that I would pressure and express disappointment in for not speaking up, I am sorry. For the times I made you feel like a sell-out, I am sorry. I know we are all fighting our own battles against white supremacy and healing from generations of trauma and have been conditioned to internalize them. To the past and current BIPOC employees of Google [Department Redacted] who helped me write and publish this, thank you for fighting this fight with me, validating my experience, sharing with me yours, and trusting in me. To the past and current BIPOC employees of Google [Department Redacted] who told me not to do this and for those who said I could as long as I redacted all the names including my own, I am sorry for not seeing that as your way of loving and supporting me. I also want to acknowledge the amount of ways you uplift the BIPOC of Google at large and the BIPOC community as a whole beyond holding white people accountable. I am sorry none of us are yet in a place where we can look back at this and laugh together. I am sorry that the triggering experiences we shared outweigh the loving memories so much that we’d rather not sustain our friendship for what it was worth. I still see you. I still love you. I miss you. I am still rooting for you. I still support you in whatever way you choose to heal whenever you’re ready to, even if that journey does not include me and even if you do not support me in or wish to be a part of mine.

“The white liberal is the worst enemy to America…In America there is no such thing as Democrat or Republican anymore. In America you have liberals and conservatives…The white liberal aren’t white people who are for independence, who are moral and ethical in their thinking. They are just a faction of white people that are jockeying for power. The same as the white conservative is a faction of white people that are jockeying for power…”

— Malcolm X

Resources and References (no more excuses, white people):

• Reply All “The Test Kitchen” Series: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, and the aftermath
• Ted Talks Daily: The Myth of Bringing Your Full, Authentic Self To Work|Jodi-Ann Burey
• NBC News: Google advised mental health leave when workers complained about racism and sexism
• New York Times Still Processing: Sweet, Sweet Fantasies, Baby
• BBC News: Timnit Gebru: Google and big tech are institutionally racist
• Twitter: April Christina Curley’s experience at and firing from Google: A thread
• Harvard Business Review: Why So Many Organizations Stay White
• Now That You’re “Listening” — Brionna Ned